According to conventional wisdom, all cars in China are blatant copies of foreign cars. With the joint venture cars, that is certainly true. With some true red Chinese cars this is also sometimes the case. Now it seems that Chinese carmakers ran out of foreign victims and started to copy Chinese cars. Volvo is owned by China’s Geely, as we all know. Can you spot the true Volvo?

Is it the one way above, or just the one above? The one way above is, so Carnewschina tells us, not a Volvo. It is a car with the memorable moniker “Jiuma JM2805CWX-1 (HD)”. No that’s not the VIN, that’s its name. The one above this paragraph is the real Volvo V50.

As you can see, the Jiuma JM2805CWX-1 (HD) – close your eyes and repeat – looks pretty much like the V50, down to the diagonal thingie across the grille.

Jiuma is a small automaker near Shanghai that is owned by the – pay attention now – Shanghai Jinma Vehicles Co. They made a dubious name for themselves by creating a knock-off Santana, also pictured above. Hint: When you knock off a car, pick a new one!

The Chinese courts are famously unreliable when they deal with knockoffs. But here, the Jinma/Juma deals with Li Shufu, owner of Geely and Volvo. He doesn’t need the courts. He has his own private army!

I’d like to know if the top one is male or female. The little symbol thingy for Volvos (the circle with an arrow) signifies being male for short hand. Does the one up top have a circle with a cross? :)

The male symbol started as shorthand for Mars (the god of war) the circle was a shield and the arrow was a spear. I can’t tell on the top pic though. If it was “circle and cross” I guess that would make it a Venus… lol.